Picking and arranging Cobaea scandens

Picking and Arranging Cobaea Scandens

It's the beginning of September and Cobaea scandens, the cup and saucer plant is in full bloom. Cobaea only starts to flower when it gets to about six feet in height and then it only flowers towards the top of the plant.

The buds, flowers and seed heads all look great in an arrangement and bring with them different colours, textures and shapes.

I tend to bunch my cobaea together and secure them with a rubber band. This bunch will then often go directly into an arrangement as is.

Arranging with the Cobaea Scandens

The lovely thing about Cobaea is that the flower head goes through so many different stages. From a tight bud to a green flower, it then develops into a purple flower, before the flower drops and the calyx closes up and forms a big fruit that looks like a passion fruit.

• Sear a tenth of the stem ends in boiling water for five seconds before putting them back into cold water, this will make your stems last longer.

For this arrangement, you will need:

• Jam jar
• Rubber bands
• Floral fix
• Ribbon or twine

Creating Your Vase

Because the Cobaea scandens stems are so exotic, I like to keep it simple with the vase so I just use a standard Bonne Maman jam jar as this is just the right height for the short Cobaea stems.

To Create Your Vase:

• add a rubber band to the outside of the jam jar
• follow this up with a line of floral fix all around the circumference of the jar
• take your rosemary stems and tuck them under the top rubber band one at a time
• press them onto the floral fix to secure them and continue working around the jar
• tap on the table so that the bottom of the jam jar sits flat on the table
• squeeze to secure onto the floral fix and then remove the rubber band
• secure with a ribbon
• leave in a shallow bowl of water overnight and it should last for over a week.

Making Your Arrangement

After filling your vase with water, add the Cobaea scandens bunch that you picked earlier and then arrange so that the tendrils are flowing over the side. Fill out the arrangement with any remaining foliage.

Adding Some Height to the Arrangement

To add some height to your arrangement, add some long tendrils at the back. This will help to give it a three-dimensional effect so that it will look good from all sides.